


Barry J. Whatshisface

by ShinyKipp



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Background Merle/Davenport if you squint, Barry's real name is Sildar Hallwinter, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, F/M, Gen, I saw this post on tumblr and really got this headcanon wedged in my brain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 13:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12631788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinyKipp/pseuds/ShinyKipp
Summary: Lup’s ears perk up slowly, and she puts down her pen. “So itisshort for something?” Research forgotten, Lup continues: “Barry. Barry. Is your name actually Barold?” She leans in, planting both hands on the table. Standing with her nose about a foot from his face, she deadpans: “Barry. It’s important that you’re honest with me, Barry.”





	Barry J. Whatshisface

**Author's Note:**

> Okay! So! I saw this post (momnar.tumblr.com/post/165208264680), and could not get this headcanon out of my brain. I got permission to write a fic inspired by it, and about two thousand words later, here we are!
> 
> I hope this fic makes you smile! I had fun writing it.

“Hey Bar?”

He looks up from the sip of his bitter black Davenport-made coffee as her voice tinkles across the space between them and makes a noise of acknowledgement.

“Is ‘Barry’ short for anything?” Lup leans in, spinning her pen in one hand and resting her chin on the other. “I know we all call you ‘Barold,’ but Taako said the other day,” and Lup snaps into an impression of her brother with a bit of a vocal lilt implying wine: “‘What if his name is _actually_ Barold? What if his name is Finnbarr. Lup, what if your boyfriend’s name is Barra?’”

Barry looks over to the couch were Taako lounges on his visits to the lab. He was in here earlier, reading quietly while Lup worked before announcing that it was trance sleep time and he was ‘outta here.’ He places his cup down on the table and leans in. “Well, uh, Lup, my name isn’t Finnbarr or Barra, no.”

Lup’s ears perk up slowly, and she puts down her pen. “So it _is_ short for something?” Research forgotten, Lup continues: “Barry. Barry. Is your name actually Barold?” She leans in, planting both hands on the table. Standing with her nose about a foot from his face, she deadpans: “Barry. It’s important that you’re honest with me, Barry.”

He can’t help but laugh a little bit at the sudden intensity in his girlfriend's eyes. Part of him wants to shrug off the topic, he’s gone fifty-six years without this conversation happening, and he could commit here. He could be Barry fuckin’ Bluejeans to everyone except the person who hired him for all eternity.

Leaving his real name behind him, though, leaving it in the dust with plane after plane and life after life…

It would also mean trying to lie to Lup, and she was generally pretty perceptive.

“Okay.” He steels himself. She’s either going to not react or react explosively. “Okay. Alright, Lup, no, my name isn’t Barold.”

She relaxes a little and takes her seat. “Okay, whew! I would have needed to go wake up Taako, and that-- that might have been it for him for this cycle. I hope you know. You just saved my brother’s life by not being named Barold.”

“It’s Sildar.”

The clock ticks on the far wall. Barry raises his cup and starts to sip, keeping it casual--

\--But Lup smashes her hands into the table with a resounding slap, and shouts. “It’s Fucking What?!”

The shock sends his cold, sludgy coffee flying into his face and across his shirt, but Lup has him by the cheeks before he can sputter. One hand is on either side of his face pressing in, and she draws him right up to her and says: “Barry, Barry, my man, my dude. What did you just say?”

“S-Sildar,” he enunciates as clearly as possible with his face smushed by two long elf hands. She’s staring at him, eyes darting over his face.

A few more beats of silence pass, Lup releases him, and she sits back down. For just finishing up a trance rest a few hours ago, she looks shocked into exhaustion.

He takes the moment of silence to prestidigitate the spill out of his clothes and waits for the inevitable follow-up.  

“How? How. Barry. Sildar. How?”

He shrugs. “Well, you see, my grandpa was Sildar, so my family called me ‘Darry.’ When I joined the IPRE,” he rubs the back of his neck, breaking away from those fiercely inquisitive eyes. “The lady at the desk wrote ‘Barry’ on my name tag, and she seemed so nice, and I was already pretty nervous, so I, uh, didn’t want to correct her.

I figured I wouldn’t wear it and that I could find a fresh one somewhere. But then everyone else was wearing them, and I figured- I figured it was close enough that I could fix it later if I got the job, but…” He breaks from his ramble and looks at Lup. “I tried to correct people at first, but it just got to be a bit of an in-joke? It was really out of my control. Then, uh, when the rest of you guys came on board, nobody called me Darry, even at home.”

Lup throws her legs onto the table and leans back, head relaxing and bangs falling over her face. “It’s been fifty-six years, Bar.”

“Yeah, well, you know.” He trails off and tries to sip his drink. All that’s left in the cup is sludge, though. He puts it down with a grimace to add another ring to their workspace.

Her voice is flat and disenchanted. “Fifty-six years. I could have been calling you ‘Dardar,’ or ‘Sildie.’”

“Ugh,” he clasps his hands above his head and stretches, shirt riding up before he settles back down. “I don’t like Sildie,” the nickname is heavy on his tongue. “But Dardar isn’t terrible.” With the explosion past and her hands not squishing him, talking was easier.

“I don’t like Dardar,” Lup says, shifting around in her seat. She knocks a paper onto the floor with her legs, but only spares it a quick glance. “But ‘Silly!’ That’s a good one.”

That makes him laugh, and he leans in, touching her leg with the back of his hand. “I don’t know, Lup, I think this upsets the- the nickname balance. You, uh, might wind up having too many to chose from if you go down this rabbit hole.”

“Challenge accepted, babe,” she drawls and winks. Then, under her breath: “Just wait until I tell Taako.” Her smile curls up on one side, wicked. “He’s gonna lose it.”

There’s no way that the twins would keep anything from each other, so Barry sighs, resigned. “Yeah, no, that’s. Uh, that’s gonna be a fun breakfast.”

She nods and moves to stand. “He should actually be done resting now.” Sharp eyes move to the clock and her hand touches Barry’s for a moment. “I’m telling him this _immediately_.”

“That’s- yeah, that’s fair.”

Lup gives his hand a squeeze and moves to the door. “You should turn in too, it’s getting late!”

Barry nods and presses his hands on the table. His back cracks as he stands with a grunt, and Lup is out the door and jogging down the hall by the time he finishes stretching out the kinks from hours of sitting.

 

 

The next morning, he’s one of the first people in the kitchen. There’s Magnus coffee today; it’s much weaker than Davenport’s brew, and he's handed a cup with just a dollop of milk as he enters the kitchen. With a mumbled word of thanks, Barry sits at the table. Taako made a huge bowl of scrambled probably-eggs, and he retrieves a plate from the pile. Before he can fill it, Taako catches his attention.

“So!” He pipes from across the table, ears up and a hand resting under his chin similar to Lup’s the night before. “I heard something very interesting about you last night, Barry.”

Lup sips her coffee. Her eyes move from Taako to Barry, and she’s trying to hide her smile in the cup.

Magnus also comes over, and Lucretia looks up from her spot at the end of the table. New information was a rare novelty, and Barry was usually rather private.

“Is this something we know?” Magnus asks, drying his breakfast dish with a threadbare towel.

“No, oh no, it isn’t.” Taako’s grin is maniacal, and Lup looks like she might explode with laughter.

“Ohh, spill it!” Magnus is sitting immediately, spinning the chair next to Lucretia around and tossing his body into it.

Fingers tenting like fantasy Mr. Burns, Taako speaks. “Well, our friend here was the victim of an unfortunate misspelling of a childhood nickname. Our friend, Barry J. Bluejeans, is, in fact!” He pauses for dramatic effect, “Darry! J. Bluejeans. Short for, I’m sure you didn’t guess it: Sildar! Sildar!” Taako is giggling through words now. “For _years_! Years! We have called this man Barry. Sildar Bluejeans.”

Lucretia buries a “snrk” into her napkin, and Magnus looks shell-shocked. “Is that true?” He asks. “Your name is Sildar Bluejeans?”

Lup is red with restrained laughter. It seems like she’s trying to escape into her mug, and Taako has a look on his face that Barry’s only seen around large piles of shiny things and gourmet food.

This is it.

“No, it’s-- it’s not true.” He leans back and takes a bite of egg.

The room is quiet besides a little noise of confusion from Lup through a mouthful of coffee.

“Bluejeans is a nickname from the IPRE too, because of the pants. My name is actually Sildar J. Hallwinter.”

Lup sprays coffee into Taako’s face, trying and failing to turn away or back into the cup, but the other elf doesn’t seem to notice as he rockets to his feet and screeches, “What?!”

Magnus bursts out laughing, Lucretia looks with mild surprise at the coffee drenched, shouting elf, and Lup has her head in her hands, silent and amazed.

Barry’s laughing too, Taako is red and dripping onto the table as he raves: “Sildar J. Hallwinter, you let us call you Barry Bluejeans for almost sixty years! Barry Bluejeans! That’s the most ridiculous name ever! That is a name for a ridiculous dweeb! Fuck!”

“I mean I am a--”

“Uh-ah!” Taako interrupts, reaches all the way across the table, slops his loose sleeve into the eggs, and presses a finger against Barry’s mouth. “You say nothing. You lied to us for sixty years.”

“This is fucking wack,” Lup murmurs into her hands.

“Fifty-six,” Magnus adds with a raised finger and a snicker.

“Whatever, and now, now you tell us this. We have over five decades of jokes to catch up on, Barold. Five decades!”

He nods. “I, uh, figured you’d say something like that.” He reaches for some eggs. “But hey, we have ‘all the time in the world,’ right?”

Taako stills for a moment before he sits back down with a mumble.  “We sure do, Sildie, we suuuure do.”

Taako and Lup start mumbling to each other, processing and thinking of over nicknames with occasional input from Magnus, and Lucretia takes some notes on a napkin. It’s only a few more quiet minutes before Davenport and Merle walk in, bedraggled and ready for breakfast, and the chaos surges like the tsunami after the quake when Cap’nport speaks:

“So, you guys finally heard about the Sildar thing?”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sitting on a few fics for this account, but I figured this would be a nice first thing to post here! Comments are appreciated.
> 
> If you wanna chat, I'm on tumblr @ kippdom! (Come shout TAZ headcanons at me <3)


End file.
